Tavis Smiley and his beloved brother in the struggle, Cornel West, just got kicked off a Chicago radio station due to declining ratings.
Smiley addressed the split recently in a heated open letter to Torey Malatia, president of Chicago Public Radio affiliate WBEZ.
“One could argue that it is easier for an African American to be president of the United States than it is to host a primetime radio program on Chicago Public Radio,” Smiley declared. He went on explaining how “demeaning, derogatory and dead wrong” Malatia and his folks are about the drop.
Smiley explained Chicago Public Media cut them off, citing declined ratings. According to the group, listeners went from 37,900 to 13,200. Besides that, officials didn’t like that the show was slanted a particular way.
“The show had developed much more of an ‘advocacy’ identity, which is inconsistent with our approach on WBEZ,” a spokesman said.
Others, however, suspect the cancelation had more to do with the pair’s relentless criticism of the president.
Read/learn more at Time Out Chicago.
via EurWeb
